Terrifying, how? This is what Trump promised, and the reason we voted for him. Half of us are quite happy to see campaign promises actually implemented.
HN is acting as if this was capricious and unplanned. In fact, it's what half of us wanted.
HN is acting as if this was capricious and unplanned. In fact, it's what half of us wanted.
1. It's not what "half of you wanted". It's what a portion of the portion of those that voted in a 55% turnout election wanted. A tiny and vindictive portion, that lost the popular vote.
2. Even if it were what "half of you wanted", it's also what half of you did not want. This is not a kid's game where you count up the points and call the clear winner. If half of your population's will is being disregarded and worked against, there is a problem.
3. This is plain and simply abhorrent. Even if these were popular policies, they are reprehensible. The majority can be misguided.
PS: Your twitter feed is worse than an angry child's. Seriously, get a hold of yourself. Applauding Trump's targeting of the free press and minorities? "Civilizational cancer"? Are you seriously surprised that people dislike you and your ideologies?
Then it seems to me there has been a problem in the US for many years now.
(Good news everyone! There's now a problem in the UK, too!)
First, it's 46% of the people who voted (i.e. less than half). Second, it's quite disingenuous to suggest that all of those people would support this hamfisted immigration restriction, as-is; in case you were oblivious to your surroundings for the last year, vast numbers of voters -- if not the majority -- were merely voting for the person they despised less. It's more than a tad delusional that there's a mandate here to go and fuck over people's lives because of the happenstance of where they happen to come from.
And it is pretty capricious.
But yeah, he did repeatedly say he would do it.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
It is a trap to think this is about just Trump.
And you think 26.7% of eligible voters, after you've suppressed and disenfranchised so many people, entitles you to violate our laws, our Constitution, and the boundaries of morality?
No. "President" Trump and his neo-Nazi advisor Stephen Bannon can shove this fascist crap where the sun don't shine.
Regardless of how strongly you feel, how heated the discussion, or how others are behaving, you're doing yourself and your argument no favors with the name-calling. Even if you feel that you're just calling a spade a spade, you're just providing others with ammunition to dismiss you and anything you say as just an angry, unreasonable rant. And if you're not actually addressing the people who you don't agree with (which means you're addressing the people who already agree with you, or at best, people who are on the fence), is it really worth saying?
You make a lot of good points at the beginning of your comment. These figures need to be kept in mind, on all sides of these discussions.
I think the problem here is that I genuinely feel I'm calling a spade a spade. Trump himself is probably not ideological enough to be a devoted neo-Nazi. Stephen Bannon, on the other hand, makes Republicans allude to fascism[1].
>“The racist, fascist extreme right is represented footsteps from the Oval Office,” said John Weaver, a Republican strategist who ran the presidential campaign of Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and previously advised Senator John McCain of Arizona. “Be very vigilant, America.”[2]
[1] -- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/14/steve-bannon-who-...
[2] -- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/donald-trump-...
How many people strongly supported the candidate they ended up casting their ballot for? Both Trump and Clinton had historically low favorability ratings. If people think they're being attacked by one side or the other, it makes it all the harder for them to listen to reasoned debate, and much more likely that they'll be actively voting against a candidate.
Even this "other side" language is problematic, in my opinion. How are you going to find allies among those you don't already agree with when you think of them as "other"? How do you expect them to listen to you? People dig in, get defensive, when they feel they're being attacked. They're no longer listening. There are some people who will never listen to you, or even if they do listen to you, aren't going to end up agreeing with you. But that's not necessarily everyone you don't currently agree with. If you've already written off everyone who voted for a different candidate than you, then you're stuck with very few options. People are more complex than the effectively binary option that was the 2016 US Presidential Election admits.
It's not a "better than them" thing. It's a "what's actually going to make a difference" thing. Language alone isn't going to solve this, of course. But language used poorly can drive needless wedges between people.
All your statements about trying to make people understand, to make them feel equal and not defensive, I was 100% on board with such an approach. And then you realise it's futile.
India did not become independent because Gandhi won; India became independent because it became unfashionable to have colonies, and the British were pressured into letting their empire dissolve.
This is naked white supremacism. For as much bullshit as we've heard about political correctness, why not just come out and say this is straight up religious and racial discrimination?
The president's Chief Strategist and Senior Counselor is a white nationalist, who used to run Breitbart.com, where there is a distinction made between white supremacists and white nationalists (I cannot explain the distinction, for I don't see one). A site all about how awful multiculturalism is, separation of races is necessary for the survival of a country, etc.
Without letting down your guard or concern, my advice is to moderate it with another possibility. The U.S. has much better insulation geographically than European countries, and a history that involves worse rhetoric and divisiveness and we've survived. There might be a pro where the whole world sees what even a little bit of white nationalism does to a country, and all those European countries flirting with their own far right nationalists, and have elections coming up soon, might just have an "OH FUCK NO" moment.
And that's probably better than if Europe were electing far right governments before the U.S. Europe has a history of conflagration. Maybe Europe gets cold feet and starts taking far right nationalist politics more seriously, and rejects it more concisely and clearly, at election time. It's much easier, safer, more stable, to squash this at an election.
You should be ashamed. Imagine being unable to go to work after a short vacation - because someone didn't like where you were born, and in the meantime, on a whim, decided not to let you go.
For absolute shame.